Friday File: Pathway to Peace or Mangled Mission in Libya?

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy greets Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron at the Elysee Palace in Paris on April 13, 2011. (Philippe Wojazer/courtesy Reuters)

Above the Fold. Barack Obama, David Cameron, and Nicolas Sarkozy penned an op-ed for several European newspapers today defending the NATO mission in Libya. The three are doubling down on their commitment to oust Qaddafi—they now say that any deal that left him in power “would be an unconscionable betrayal.” This tough talk, however, sidesteps the fundamental problem with their strategy: the means they are providing fall short of the ends they desire. Air power does a poor job of protecting civilians, as the op-ed’s hot rhetoric about a “medieval siege” of Misurata implicitly admits. Air power of the sort we have seen over the past few weeks is also far from sufficient to compel Qaddafi to quit—witness his triumphant drive through the streets of Tripoli yesterday. Obama, Cameron, and Sarkozy say that NATO will keep the pressure on. And they may succeed in doing that despite the growing frictions within the alliance over Libya. But the costs of a policy of slowly tightening the noose around Qaddafi will be paid by Libyan civilians, precisely the people we are trying to protect.

CFR Event of the Week.Voters go to the polls tomorrow in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country. (Nigeria has two-and-half times more people than Great Britain.) Goodluck Jonathan, the incumbent, is favored to win. A year ago, Nigeria’s foreign minister Henry Odein Ajumogobia dropped by CFR to discuss the Jonathan administration’s plans for reforming Nigeria. You can read the transcript of the minister’s remarks, watch the video, or download the audio to go.

Read of the Week. If America’s fiscal woes aren’t enough to keep you up at night, check out the Economist’sspecial report on the future of pensions. In a nutshell, people in rich countries are living much longer and their retirement programs aren’t keeping pace. Unless governments adopt major policy changes, future retirees will not be living a life of comfort.

Poll Question of the Week. Republicans are bickering now over whether they should back down from their no-new-taxes pledge. On that score, those who insist on balancing the budget solely through spending cuts are out of step with most Americans. Gallup asked whether next year’s budget “should or should not include higher taxes for families with household incomes of $250,000 or higher.” Six in ten Americans said it should, while four in ten said it shouldn’t. Conversely, slightly more Americans oppose “significant additional cuts in spending on domestic programs” (47 percent) than support them (44 percent). Does this mean that GOP lawmakers are about to embrace President Obama’s call for higher taxes? Nope. Because they are less interested in what the average American voter thinks than in what their fellow Republicans think. And Gallup finds that self-identified Republicans continue to tilt heavily against tax hikes and for deeper cuts in domestic spending.